October 3, 2019. Excited to announce the screening of my short documentary film ‘Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild’ starting tonight (October 3, 2019) in the Brooklyn Museum in New York at the special exhibition JR: Chronicles – a major show that surveys the complete body of work of the artist JR for the first time in North America.

Best of INSIDE OUT – Justice For Afghan Refugees In Belgium
One of JR’s major projects is the global participatory art project INSIDE OUT, and the film ‘Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild’ documents one of the Inside Out projects ‘Justice For Afghan Refugees In Belgium’ – that was chosen as one of the favorite Inside Out Group Actions.

Film 2019 (Brooklyn) edition
The video published first online June 20, 2016 (see links below), when selected by Inside Out Project last month for screening at the JR: Chronicles exhibition , has been slightly reworked into this higher quality, 2019 edition (20190911) for display at the Boston museum exhibition .

Beguinage Project
In March 2014 Kristen Cattell (USA) and Michel van der Burg (Holland) traveled to Brussels to meet a group of Afghans living inside an old Catholic church – the church of Saint John the Baptist at the Béguinage (Beguinage Church). At the time, nearly one hundred Afghan refugees had set up camp within the walls of the seventeenth century compound. We made a reportage over several days and interviewed several people including Samir Hamdard – the spokesperson for these afghan refugees – who died recently following a house fire.
In between these interviews, Michel visited the artist Olivier Bonny in the nearby artist village Ateliers Mommen in Saint-Josse (Brussels) and filmed the InsideOut installation outside on the facade of the Mommen building – portraits of Afghans living in the Beguinage church.

Sans frontières ! Borderless ! Zonder Grenzen !
That InsideOut project was inaugurated a few days earlier at the Borderless ! festival in the Ateliers Mommen – a festival of 4 days of solidarity with Afghan asylum seekers , March 2014 in Salon Mommen, Saint-Josse, Brussels, Belgium.

Film Credits
Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild
Afghan refugees living in the Brussels Béguinage church with posters by Chiara Ravano for the Inside Out project “Justice for Afghan refugees in Belgium” (Olivier Bonny, Salon Mommen) in Brussels , Belgium – March 2014. Félix Snyers on the Béguinage church pipe organ.
A Beguinage Project report by Kristen Cattell & Michel van der Burg.
Film 20190911_20160620 Michel van der Burg | miracles.media

Links

Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild – 2019 Brooklyn edition (20190911)

JR: Chronicles – Brooklyn Museum – October 4, 2019–May 3, 2020 https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/jr_chronicles

Brooklyn Talks: JR and Baratunde Thurston – Thursday, October 3, 2019
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/calendar/event/brooklyn_talks_jr_thurston_october_2019

INSIDE OUT – Justice For Afghan Refugees In Belgium
https://www.insideoutproject.net/en/group-actions/belgium-brussels-2

Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild – 1st edition (20160620) https://michelvanderburg.com/2016/06/20/beguinage-refugees-into-the-wild/

JR Artist – https://www.jr-art.net

Up Close With JR at the Brooklyn Museum
https://wwd.com/eye/people/jr-brooklyn-museum-chronicles-artist-mural-exhibition-new-york-1203330302/

Collection of our reports on Afghan Refugees In Belgium – https://michelvanderburg.com/tag/afghan/

News

Updates

Oct 4, 2019 –  Added News section with JR’s opening tweet

Oct 6, 2019 – Added Beguinage Project section and updated credits section